Birds. Plus outdoors issues as I see them

Here in eastern North Dakota we’re into our 17th year of above-average precipitation. It’s the longest wet cycle IÂ can recall in my 40+ years of living here. The floods along the local rivers–particularly the Red–seem to be getting worse. Reasons for that are many and IÂ won’t address that issue here but the aftermaths of these events provide for interesting bushwhacking.

Many times in recent years I’ve found various objects which had been carried by flood and deposited helter-skelter somewhere downstream of its origin.Â PortionsÂ ofÂ docks, sports balls of all sorts, various tarps, gas cans…basically anything. Animal carcasses are fairly common too.

Last week IÂ came upon this unfortunate critter about 10 feet up in a tree. While it remains somewhat a mystery, my best guess is raccoon. What say you?

IÂ hope there’s a wildlife biologist out there somewhere who has some familiarity with skulls and can weigh in on this.